Dear fellow preemie mom,
I see you. I see you at the eye doctor with your preemie twins. I see everyone in awe of your babies and saying how cute they are and your forced smile praying that they don’t try to touch your babies. The germs are too much for them and so many people don’t understand that.
I see everyone asking you how old they are. That one simple question doesn’t just have a simple answer because once you say their actual age, people comment how small they are, and then you feel the need to explain their adjusted age and how they were born so early. I see how you’re just trying to get through it so you can go home.
What they don’t see, but I can see, is how mentally drained you are. I can see in your eyes how broke down you are from this appointment, but they don’t. They don’t because they haven’t been there. I wanted to run up to you and hug you and tell you that there is a light at the end of the tunnel and that I’ve been there, but I didn’t want to stall you getting out of here any longer. I know that what you need in this moment is to just get to your car so you can stop forcing a fake smile for strangers and sob if you need to.
Hearing your babies (in my case baby) cry and scream as hard as they do during these appointments is so heartbreaking. They claim that “it doesn’t hurt them”, but I don’t believe it and I’m willing to bet you don’t either. The way they scream isn’t an angry cry, it is the worst cry I’ve ever heard, and it seems like it lasts forever. Every second that they have the clamps on their eyes and are using that metal utensil to check their eyes while they’re screaming bloody murder seems like forever and it took everything in me not to take my baby and run at those appointments. It’s such a struggle that people can’t even imagine if they haven’t been there. You drag yourself to these appointments fully dreading what you know is coming because you don’t want your baby to go blind by not being proactive, but the end result is always the same. It’s 9 in the morning when you leave there and you’re already wishing the day was over because you just mentally and emotionally can’t deal anymore.
Being a preemie mom comes with so many more struggles and challenges than I would’ve ever thought and it tests your strength to no end. But here I am, a year later, at a regular children’s eye appointment for a follow up with no screaming and no metal utensils. I know it doesn’t seem like it right now and it feels like a lifetime away before these appointments will finally be over, but it does get better Mama. These hard times won’t last forever.
I see everyone asking you how old they are. That one simple question doesn’t just have a simple answer because once you say their actual age, people comment how small they are, and then you feel the need to explain their adjusted age and how they were born so early. I see how you’re just trying to get through it so you can go home.
What they don’t see, but I can see, is how mentally drained you are. I can see in your eyes how broke down you are from this appointment, but they don’t. They don’t because they haven’t been there. I wanted to run up to you and hug you and tell you that there is a light at the end of the tunnel and that I’ve been there, but I didn’t want to stall you getting out of here any longer. I know that what you need in this moment is to just get to your car so you can stop forcing a fake smile for strangers and sob if you need to.
Hearing your babies (in my case baby) cry and scream as hard as they do during these appointments is so heartbreaking. They claim that “it doesn’t hurt them”, but I don’t believe it and I’m willing to bet you don’t either. The way they scream isn’t an angry cry, it is the worst cry I’ve ever heard, and it seems like it lasts forever. Every second that they have the clamps on their eyes and are using that metal utensil to check their eyes while they’re screaming bloody murder seems like forever and it took everything in me not to take my baby and run at those appointments. It’s such a struggle that people can’t even imagine if they haven’t been there. You drag yourself to these appointments fully dreading what you know is coming because you don’t want your baby to go blind by not being proactive, but the end result is always the same. It’s 9 in the morning when you leave there and you’re already wishing the day was over because you just mentally and emotionally can’t deal anymore.
Being a preemie mom comes with so many more struggles and challenges than I would’ve ever thought and it tests your strength to no end. But here I am, a year later, at a regular children’s eye appointment for a follow up with no screaming and no metal utensils. I know it doesn’t seem like it right now and it feels like a lifetime away before these appointments will finally be over, but it does get better Mama. These hard times won’t last forever.
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